Johnny Gonzales kneels next to his client, Jorje Mendez, who is struggling through the last set of pushups at the gym.
"Give me eight of them!" says Gonzales. "Be strict. This is where all the gains are made, right here. If you can do this, you can do anything!"
It's a pretty typical gym in an atypical setting. Gonzales works with patients of the Lake County Tribal Health Clinic, in Lakeport, Calif., and the gym is within the clinic itself.
Patients diagnosed with prediabetes who enroll in a program to lose weight are eligible to work with Gonzales ā free of charge.
The Northern California clinic, which targets members of the six local Pomo tribes in the county, also offers classes on healthy eating and other lifestyle changes that can reduce the risk of diabetes.
Mendez, an accountant and father of five, was a cross-country champion at Clear Lake High School, but in the 15 years since has settled into a more sedentary lifestyle that involved "eating a lot ā and [drinking] a lot of alcohol," he says. His weight ballooned to 300 lbs.
He decided to join the clinic's program after he was diagnosed as prediabetic. Grueling sessions with Gonzales three times a week have helped him lose over 45 lbs.
[For more of this story, written by Farida Jhabvala Romero, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...to-fend-off-diabetes]
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